Attic Red-Figure Kalpis (Front)

The panel on the shoulder of this Athenian red-figure kalpis (water jar) shows a group of youths in conversation. On the left, a young man watches his seated counterpart tying his sandal (marked with added red), while at right a second pair gestures at one another, perhaps in the act of bargaining. The youth seated on a chair raises two fingers and a thumb from his tightly-wrapped himation, while his companion leans on a staff and extends his right hand with outstretched fingers. In his left hand he holds a round object, perhaps a purse or a treat for the attentive hound below. A second dog crouches at far left with tail curled. Above the group hangs a writing tablet, a marker of youth, and all four figures show hints of facial hair. At the upper right is an inscription in red: kalos (“beautiful”); what appears to be a second kalos (the letters are rather ill-formed) runs vertically in front of the sandal-tying youth.



The kalpis was a new vase shape in the early 400s B.C. The rounded profile replaced the older, more angular form of hydria, or water jar. Early in his career, the Kleophrades Painter decorated the angular form of hydria, but he later switched to the kalpis. Other features, such as the type of ornament framing the panel, also suggest that this vase comes from the later phase of the Kleophrades Painter's career.